Walter Cronkite: News

“Our country today is at a stage in our foreign policy similar to that crucial point in our nation's early history when our Constitution was produced in Philadelphia.
Let us hear the peal of a new international liberty bell that calls us all to the creation of a system of enforceable world law in which the universal desire for peace can place its hope and prayers.”

Walter Cronkite

UN Address (1999)
Context: Our country today is at a stage in our foreign policy similar to that crucial point in our nation's early history when our Constitution was produced in Philadelphia.
Let us hear the peal of a new international liberty bell that calls us all to the creation of a system of enforceable world law in which the universal desire for peace can place its hope and prayers.
As Carl Van Doren has written, "History is now choosing the founders of the World Federation. Any person who can be among that number and fails to do so has lost the noblest opportunity of a lifetime."

World , Peace , Law , Hope

“It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace.
To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order.
But the American colonies did it once and brought forth one of the most nearly perfect unions the world has ever seen.”

Walter Cronkite

UN Address (1999)

World , Peace , Faith , Law

“And that's the way it is…. [reads date]. This is Walter Cronkite, CBS News; good night.”

Walter Cronkite

His nightly sign-off line on CBS News (1962 - 1981)

Way , Reading , Night

“Eric's not retiring from television entirely, but only from daily journalism, and that means, of course, this broadcast. It's not only his beautifully-chosen words of wisdom that we shall miss — to this newsman, he's one of the finest essayists of this century — but we shall also miss our almost daily contacts with him in the pursuit of our craft, in which his rare insight and unswerving integrity were a constant source of professional guidance. And yes, it's also true that we shall be the poorer in our self-esteem for no longer being able to call him "colleague," but that's the way it is: Wednesday, November 30, 1977. This is Walter Cronkite, CBS News; good night.”

Walter Cronkite

On Eric Sevareid's retirement (1977)